Ian Roberts
igr20@cam.ac.uk
 Generate
well-formed structural descriptions
 “create” trees/labelled bracketings
 More (X’) or less (PS-rules) abstract
 Can create infinite structures
Movement rules:
 Don’t create structures but manipulate them
 Technically, they map phrase markers into
other phrase markers
 Informally, constituents “move” from one
place in the structure to another

Head-movement, as in English subject-auxiliary inversion in
questions:
John can leave.  Can John t leave?
CP
|
C’












ru
C
Can
TP
ru
NP
John
T’
ru
T
t
VP
|
V
win

as in the English passive:
The policeman arrested the student 
The student was arrested t
TP
ru
NP
ru
T’
ru
D
N T
The studentwas
VP
ru
V
NP
arrested t
 The
most important and interesting type of
movement for various reasons.
 Moves (almost) any XP to the beginning of
the sentence to form, in the simplest case, a
question.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)

Which man will John see t ? -- object
NP
Who should John talk to t ? – indirect
object NP (“preposition stranding”)
To whom can John talk t ? – indirect
object PP (“pied-piping”)
How angry is Alex t ?
-- AP
What does John believe t ? – CP
TP and VP do not undergo WHmovement
“Echo-questions” show where the wh-phrase
originates:
Bill bought WHAT?!
You talked to WHO?!
CP
ru
C’
ru ru
D
N C
TP
Which
man will ru
NP
NP
T’
|
N
ru
T
John t
VP
ru
V
see
NP
t
I wonder ..
(1) which man John will see t ?-- object NP
(2) who John talk should to t ? – indirect
object NP (“preposition stranding”)
(3) to whom John can talk t ? – indirect
object PP (“pied-piping”)
(4) how angry Alex is t ?
-- AP
(5) what John believes t ? – CP
 Just like direct questions except no
subject-aux inversion.
 C must be empty here (no
that/if/whether)


Who t saw John?
“vacuous movement”:
CP
ru
NP
C’
|
ru
N
C
TP
Who
ru
NP
t
T’
ru
T
VP
ru
V
saw
NP
John
I
wonder who t saw John ?
 *I wonder who did t t see John ?
 *I wonder who that/if t saw John ?
 *I wonder that/if who saw John ?
C must always be empty in indirect subject
questions like all other indirect questions.
 Movement to SpecC’ always, accompanied
by a zero [+wh] C.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
Which man did you say (that) John will see
t?
-- object NP
Who did you say (that) John will talk to t ?
– indirect object NP (“preposition
stranding”)
To whom did you say (that) John will talk t
? – indirect object PP (“pied-piping”)
How angry did you say (that) Alex is t ?-AP
What did you say (that) John believes t ? –
CP
 Who
did you say [ that Mary believes [ that
John saw t ]] ?
 Who did you say [ that Mary believes [ that
Fred knows [ that John saw t ]]] ?
 Who did you say [ that Mary believes [ that
Fred knows [ that I asserted [ that John saw
t ]]] ?
 .. and so on.
 The
unbounded nature of WH-islands
poses a problem for PS-rules/X’theory
because
 PS-rules/X’-theory are local: they define
little bits of the tree at a time, e.g.
VP  V CP
How does VP “know” it’s part of a whdependency as in:
 Who did you say [ that Mary [VP believes
[CP that John saw t ]] ?
 Either
we complicate the PS-rules/X’-theory
hugely (this can be and has been done) or we
have two relatively simple rule types:
 PS-rules/X’-theory build structure (create
phrase markers)
 Movement/transformational rules manipulate
structure (map phrase markers into other
phrase markers)
 WH-movement:
Move a WH-phrase to the
specifier of a [+wh] C.
 “NP-movement”: move the object to the
subject position (passive)
 Head-movement: move T to C (subject-aux
inversion)
(The last two can be generalised; WHmovement is already in quite a general form
here).

(1)

Although WH-movement is unbounded, it doesn’t apply
just anywhere, but is subject to stringent locality
conditions, cf.:
my guitar, John’s cat – possessor NP in Spec of higher
NP:
NP1
ru
NP2
N’1
|
|
N’2
N1
|
cat
N2
guitar
John’s
my
And similarly for whose cat

If you want to know whose cat you’re
talking about:
(1)
Whose cat did you feed t ? – object NP
*Whose did you feed [NP t cat ] ? – can’t
apply WH-movement directly to the
possessor, but must “pied-pipe” the whole
object.
(2)
 The
Left Branch Constraint (LBC):
WH-movement can’t apply to a left-branch,
or to part of a left branch.
 So, whose can’t move on its own. Cf also:
How angry is Alex t ? -- AP-movement
*How is Alex [AP t angry ] ? – no movement just
of Spec of AP.
Sometimes a pronoun appears where a gap
could be:
John, I like (him). John, I like {him/t}.
Pronouns don’t obey island constraints:
*Whose did you say that you like [NP t cat ]?
Whose cat did you say that you like t ?
?Who did you say that you like his cat ?
Marginally (in English) a resumptive can link
to a WH, but only in an island.
 The
LBC is one of several constraints on WHmovement called “island constraints”
(islands are things that are difficult move
off). In general, WH-movement:
 Leaves a gap
 Is unbounded
 Obeys the LBC (and other island constraints)
 Recall
the constituency test clefting:
John wrote the book  It was John that wrote
the book.
 It
leaves a gap
*It was John that he wrote the letter.
 It can be unbounded
It was John that Mary said that Bill thinks t
wrote the letter.
 It obeys LBC:
*It was John’s that I saw [NP t cat ].
 We
need movement rules alongside PSrules/X’-theory
 Three types of movement
 WH-movement involves unbounded
dependency
 WH-movement leaves a gap, obeys LBC
 Clefting is a type of WH-movement (albeit a
bit hidden)